A Very Good Year

On By jbIn Superstars of Easy Listening, TV3 Comments
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(Pictured: Frank Sinatra talks with Walter Cronkite.) 

Maybe once a year I read a book so good I am literally sad that it ends. This year it was James Kaplan’s gigantic two-volume biography, Frank: The Voice (2010) and Sinatra: The Chairman (2015). If you choose to read it, pack a lunch: there’s something like 1800 pages between the two volumes. This week’s posts are all inspired by the book.  

By 1965, Frank Sinatra was firmly entrenched as America’s #1 pop star, Non-Elvis Division, his career revitalized since his Oscar for From Here to Eternity in 1954 and a string of classic albums. For Sinatra’s 50th birthday that year, CBS News planned a documentary on his life and career. Producer Don Hewitt very badly wanted him to sit for an interview with Walter Cronkite, but Sinatra famously hated reporters. Hewitt got him by telling Sinatra that if he spoke to Cronkite, he would be occupying “the same seat Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson sat in.” The appeal to Frank’s ego—that the special would treat him as if he were a president of the United States—was enough. Not only did he agree to the interview, he permitted the CBS crew to film him recording “It Was a Very Good Year.” And in fact, CBS News crews followed Sinatra around for six months.

CBS had done other profiles of serious artists, such as Pablo Casals and Isaac Stern. Sinatra believed his would be the same kind of reverent retrospective on the performer and his art. But in October, when Walter Cronkite came to Sinatra’s home to film the interview, there were fireworks. Cronkite asked about his hot temper. With anger flashing in his eyes, Frank insisted that he had grown “gentler” in recent years, a claim belied by a montage of newspaper headines about his confrontations with reporters and photographers. Then Cronkite asked about Sinatra’s Mafia connections, which caused Sinatra to bolt.

Hewitt followed him into a bedroom, where Sinatra claimed he’d been promised there would be no Mafia questions. Hewitt said he’d never agreed to that.

“I ought to kill you,” Sinatra said.

“With anyone else, that’s a figure of speech,” Hewitt said. “But you probably mean it.”

“I mean it,” Sinatra replied. Hewitt fled the house, and Sinatra withdrew his consent for the special. The New York Times explained that he “objects to stress on matters not related to his profession.”

Somehow, an agreement was reached, and Cronkite was permitted to ask about the mob, although what he got in response wasn’t much: “I do meet all kinds of people in the world because of the natural habitat from day to day in theatrical work and nightclub work, in concerts, wherever I might be, in restaurants, you meet all kinds of people. So there’s really not much to be said about that, and I think the less said the better, because it’s—there is no—there’s no answer.”

Sinatra (which you can see in its entirety here) aired on November 16, 1965, with a script written by Andy Rooney. In addition to the Cronkite interview and the studio footage, Sinatra sang several songs, including one at a prison (highlighted among his many charitable works), and was seen hanging out with family and friends in his favorite saloon. Afterward, TV critics panned the show as a puff piece for not asking hard questions about the Mafia or anything else, including his colorful love life, which currently starred Mia Farrow, 30 years his junior, who would soon become his third wife. Variety called it “an unmitigated rave for Frankie Goodfellow, star performer, tycoon with a heart of gold, family man (yet), and all around ball-haver.”

In December 1965, “It Was a Very Good Year” hit the radio, eventually reaching #25 on the Hot 100 and #1 on Billboard‘s Easy Listening chart—the very recording that Sinatra had made on the night CBS cameras were in the studio. And although Sinatra had been a pop star for 25 years by then, his greatest period of sustained singles chart success began with that song. In a 55-week period between June 1966 and June 1967, Sinatra would occupy the #1 spot on the Easy Listening chart for 22 weeks with five different singles: “Strangers in the Night,” “Summer Wind,” “That’s Life,” “Somethin’ Stupid,” and “The World We Knew.” Two of them, “Strangers in the Night” and “Somethin’ Stupid,” a duet with Nancy, would also go to #1 on the Hot 100. For a man who had just turned 50, it was indeed a very good year.

In the next installment: Sinatra’s life was filled with capers, none stranger than one that temporarily cost him $239,985.

Heaven Is Goodbye

On By jbIn Forgotten 455 Comments
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(Pictured: Lee Marvin in a moment of reflection, 1967.)

Although I am not sure he is especially well-remembered today, Lee Marvin was one of Hollywood’s great bad-asses. You can spot him in famous 50s films including The Wild One and Bad Day at Black Rock, but at the same time he was doing lots of television, including a regular role on M Squad from 1957 to 1960. In 1965, he won a Best Actor Oscar for Cat Ballou. He played cowboys, cops, soldiers, good guys, and bad guys with a stern, thick-lipped face and a voice that originated somewhere deep below ground. And it is the sound of that voice that has brought Lee Marvin to your notice and mine today.

In 1968, Marvin turned down a role in The Wild Bunch in favor of the lead in a version of the 1951 Lerner and Loewe western/musical Paint Your Wagon, which also starred Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg. It occasionally appears on lists of Hollywood’s most infamous bombs. Although it was one of the top-grossing movies of 1969, Paramount Pictures never made a dime on it. Its script was adapted by Paddy Chayefsky and its songs arranged by Nelson Riddle, but critics disliked it. Young moviegoers disdained it, at the moment in history when both westerns and old-fashioned musicals were falling out of style.

Marvin plays Ben Rumson, a prospector for gold in California who has loved and lost, and by the latter stages of the film he is musing about all that has happened to him, and what made him do it. As he walks through the rain, he sings a song called “Wand’rin’ Star.” In the UK, where Paint Your Wagon played in one London theater for a solid year-and-a-half, “Wand’rin’ Star” became an unlikely hit, eventually spending three weeks at #1 on the official singles chart in March 1970, keeping the Beatles’ “Let It Be” from the top spot.

(Digression: “Wand’rin’ Star,” which was backed by Clint Eastwood singing another Paint Your Wagon song, “I Talk to the Trees,” made #6 in the UK for the entire year 1970. As Tom Ewing wrote in his series Popular, about every UK #1 single, “The singles chart at this point was clearly still wide open, deserted by emergent ‘album acts’ and without much grip on a younger teen audience.” As a result, the British charts in this period are full of novelties, recorded by everyone from macho movie stars to singing soccer players.)

Although the Paint Your Wagon movie soundtrack managed to make #28 on the Billboard album chart in a 56-week run, “Wand’rin’ Star” was not a hit in America. The vast majority of its chart action at ARSA is from the UK and Australia. Only five American stations in that database charted it; KNUZ in Houston was the most influential station to do so, ranking it as high as #30 in November 1970.

Marvin sang “Wand’rin’ Star” himself, refusing to be dubbed. He strains to get most of the notes, and the impossible depth of his untrained voice is incongruous opposite the old-fashioned Hollywood mixed chorus backing him. Marvin’s Paint Your Wagon co-star, Jean Seberg, famously described it as the sound of rain gurgling down a pipe; “Wand’rin’ Star” was also described as the first 45 ever recorded at 33 1/3. I find a certain weird charm in it, but your mileage may vary.

After Paint Your Wagon, Lee Marvin remained a familiar presence in movies throughout the 1970s. By the end of the decade, he was embroiled in the famous “palimony” case, in which his live-in companion, Michele Triola, sued for spousal support and community property after the breakup of their five-year relationship, even though they had never been legally married. The case, filed in 1976, wasn’t settled until 1979, when a court ruled that Marvin was required to make only a $104,000 payment and not give up one-half of his net worth—a sum of $1.8 million—which Triola was seeking. (The smaller payment was eventually overturned on appeal.)

By the dawn of the 80s, Marvin was only in his mid 50s, but his career momentum slowed. He appeared in a handful of films and TV roles after that, his last one in Delta Force alongside Chuck Norris in 1986. His health failed at the end of that year, and he died in August 1987 at age 63. Lee Marvin had been a Marine and was wounded while serving in the Pacific during World War II, so he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Do I know where hell is?
Hell is in hello
Heaven is goodbye forever
It’s time for me to go
I was born under a wand’rin’ star
A wand’rin’, wand’rin’ star

Hold On

On By jbIn American Bottom 6013 Comments
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(Pictured: San Francisco band the Sons of Champlin, best known back in the day among readers of music magazines and browsers of the cutout bins.)

Mid-August 1976 was a busy time in the life of 16-year-old me. My family took a short trip, an overnight in Chicago and then a day at the Wisconsin State Fair in suburban Milwaukee. We got home and watched Gerald Ford hold off Ronald Reagan to win the Republican presidential nomination (because it was all there was to watch in the days of three-channel universe). And I listened to the radio as much as I could before I wouldn’t be able to listen to it as much—we’d go back to school on August 25, nearly two weeks before Labor Day.

Here are some of the songs outside the Top 40 during the week of August 7, 1976.

41. “Getaway/Earth Wind and Fire
42. “Devil Woman”/Cliff Richard
46. “With Your Love”/Jefferson Starship
51. “Still the One”/Orleans
73. “Magic Man”/Heart
74. “Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”/Alan Parsons Project
75. “I Never Cry”/Alice Cooper
83. “Don’t Fear the Reaper”/Blue Oyster Cult
Some of the songs that will take us through autumn and into the winter are already in the Top 40 this week. Some of the rest are lining up outside.

48. “Hold On”/Sons of Champlin. Bill Champlin was a member of Chicago from 1981 until 2009, but he also led this band, formed in mid-60s San Francisco. The Sons of Champlin released their first album in 1969. They split up in 1977 before a new millennium reunion starting in 1997. They were planning another reunion show for this past April, which I presume did not actually happen. “Hold On” is one of two Sons singles to make the Hot 100. It peaked at #47.

54. “Ten Percent”/Double Exposure. Double Exposure was a group of Philadelphia journeymen who signed with the Salsoul label in 1975. Although it was not a big radio hit (#54 Hot 100, #63 R&B), “Ten Percent” is nevertheless an important record in the history of disco as one of the first (if not the first) commercially available 12-inch single, and for its groundbreaking nine-minute remix, which helped it reach #2 on Billboard‘s dance chart. It’s a safe bet that some of the musicians on “Ten Percent” are on many other famous Philly soul joints.

70. “Light Up the World With Sunshine”/Hamilton, Joe Frank and Dennison. Poor old Alan Dennison finally got his name on the marquee after replacing Tommy Reynolds and singing without glory on the #1 hit “Falling in Love” and the group’s 1976 hit “Winners and Losers,” which we recommend you listen to whenever possible.

79. “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”/The Deadly Nightshade. Early in 1976, the Deadly Nightshade, a three-woman country rock and bluegrass group, was doing a live radio performance and waiting for guitarist Anne Bowen to change a broken string. To fill time, bassist Pamela Brandt started riffing that that their next record would be a disco version of the theme from the soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which was a national rage at the moment. The audience response was so positive that the band joked to their manager that they should actually do it. But he took it to RCA Records and the label bit, so now the Deadly Nightshade had to write it for real (although they were forced to sign away their songwriting credit). Jazz player Mike Mainieri, a friend of the band, offered to produce, and he rounded up some major New York studio cats to play on it. Brandt says, “And there we were with our washboard.” Whole story here, song here.

87. “Popsicle Toes”/Michael Franks. I first learned about Michael Franks and his slyly swinging “Popsicle Toes” from a Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders compilation. These sets contained big stars and hits as well as new music by lesser-known artists, were sold exclusively by mail, and generally cost two bucks apiece. (From this list of 35, I count 10 in my collection.) “Popsicle Toes” is from Franks’ first Warner/Reprise album, The Art of Tea. “Popsicle Toes” is his lone Hot 100 hit, although “Your Secret’s Safe With Me” was #4 on the AC chart in 1985.

102. “Rose of Cimarron”/Poco
105. “I Don’t Want to Go Home”/Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
106. “Cherry Bomb”/Runaways
110. “Did You Boogie”/Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids
Behold the glorious variety of pop music in the summer of 1976. “Rose of Cimarron” is an forgotten gem that would jump into the Hot 1oo the next week and then fall right back out again. “I Don’t Want to Go Home” is the title song from the Jukes’ first album. “Cherry Bomb” looks toward rock’s future; “Did You Boogie,” which features the voice of Wolfman Jack, throws back to its past.

Golden Rings and Other Things

On By jbIn American Top 408 Comments
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(Pictured: the Starland Vocal Band: Jon Carroll, Margot Chapman, Taffy Danoff, and Bill Danoff.)

We are back in the summer of 1976 for a second installment about the American Top 40 show from the week of August 7, guest-hosted by Los Angeles/San Antonio DJ Sonny Melendrez. Now on with the countdown:

18. “Baby I Love Your Way”/Peter Frampton
17. “I’m Easy”/Keith Carradine
There was a particular type of summer evening on the farm. You’d step out into it after supper and see the sun beginning to sink behind the barn, softening the light and lengthening the shadows. It may have been hot during the day, but it’s more pleasant now. (Later, in a house with no air conditioning, a box fan in a south window, pointing outward to draw the night air in through open bedroom windows on the north side of the house, will cool things off nicely.) Maybe you’ll be a part of this tableau only long enough to get into your car and drive into town seeking adventure. But maybe you’re going to finish mowing the lawn, or toss a ball around with your brothers, or pick raspberries, or play with the dog, or walk down to the creek to watch the water go under the bridge. Later, if the mosquitoes don’t chase everyone inside, maybe you’ll sit and watch the fireflies come out, blinking to life in the distance, near and far. As night falls, the first star you see is probably the planet Venus, but that’s a distinction without a difference. It won’t stop 16-year-old you from wishing you may and wishing you might have the wish you wish tonight.

Years from now, you won’t be able to remember the specifics of those nights as vividly as you remember how it felt to be in the place where you did them.

10. “Afternoon Delight”/Starland Vocal Band. Many people have heard the story that “Afternoon Delight” was inspired by a restaurant menu, but how, exactly? Sonny says it was at Clyde’s, a place in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC. Starland member Bill Danoff noticed a portion of the menu that was available only from 3:30 until 6, headed “the afternoon’s delight,” and one thing led to another. Sonny runs down the dishes: spiced shrimp with artichoke vinaigrette, fresh paté with French bread, and baked brie with slivered almonds. I can dig it. Sex is fine, but sometimes you’d rather have the brie.

8. “Kiss and Say Goodbye”/Manhattans
7. “Got to Get You Into My Life”/Beatles
6. “Rock and Roll Music”/Beach Boys
The Manhattans are down a long way from #1 last week. The Beatles are in their third straight week at #7. Sonny introduces the Beach Boys by saying, “This is what American Top 40 is all about.” And the vibe on this part of the show is what the summer of 1976 is all about.

3. “Moonlight Feels Right”/Starbuck
2. “Love Is Alive”/Gary Wright
Before playing Starbuck, Sonny recaps the tops of the other charts. Earth Wind and Fire’s “Getaway” is #1 soul. (It will debut on AT40 next week.) “Golden Ring” by George Jones and Tammy Wynette is at #1 country (and will become an absolute classic). Breezin’ by George Benson is #1 on the album chart. And if there were a Song of the Summer chart for 1976, either “Moonlight Feels Right” or “Love Is Alive” might top it.

1. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”/Elton John and Kiki Dee. Me, 2016: “Songs from 1976 almost always take me back there in my head. ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,’ however, has never done that for me. Figuring out why would probably require me to undergo deep psychoanalysis—which is not a bad idea, actually.” This is Elton’s sixth #1 single in America, but his first in England.

As I mentioned in the first installment, AT40‘s modern-day syndicator doesn’t offer substitute-hosted shows because Casey himself is a prime attraction. During its heyday, however, AT40 wasn’t about Casey Kasem, but the music, the artists, and the listeners. (That’s why those rare occasions when he talks about himself, going to a show in Vegas or doing cartoon voiceover work, are almost jarring.) Casey’s fill-ins had to fit into the show the same way he did. Sonny Melendrez certainly did that.

After Sonny’s final sign-off, the “shuckatoom” theme plays for 90 seconds, to the cold ending nobody hears on the modern-day repeats, and then the show’s over. But 44 years hence, some of us who were listening that week will be listening still.

See You Tonight

On By jbIn American Top 405 Comments
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(Pictured: Chicago’s horns and rhythm section, on stage in 1976.)

To my knowledge, in all the years my radio station was carrying American Top 40, affiliates were offered only two shows not hosted by Casey Kasem: Dick Clark on March 25, 1972, and Gary Owens on September 12, 1981. (The Clark and Owens shows were offered as optional shows after each man’s death, and I suspect that few stations carried them. Mine didn’t. For modern-day affiliates, Casey is as much the attraction as the music.) But during the show’s heyday, once or twice each year, Casey would take a week off, and his substitute list over the years is a who’s-who of legendary Los Angeles radio jocks, including not just Clark and Owens but Robert W. Morgan, Wink Martindale, Bob Eubanks, Humble Harve Miller, Charlie Tuna, Don Bowman (Casey’s most-frequent substitute in the early years of the show), and Charlie Van Dyke (who substituted more than anyone else).

On the show dated August 7, 1976, Casey’s substitute was Sonny Melendrez, who was in the midst of a 13-year run at various Los Angeles stations, sandwiched between successful stints in San Antonio. Today, he’s still with us at age 74, and he’s a DJ honoree in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And here’s some of what he played on the show.

40. “I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking”/Supremes. This is the end of an era—the final chart entry for the Supremes, now made up of Mary Wilson, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene, who came on board after Cindy Birdsong left during the making of the group’s 1976 album. All four of them are on “I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking,” which will spend only this week in the Top 40.

EXTRA: “On Broadway”/Drifters. When I was originally drafting this post, the inclusion of this 1963 hit and Sonny’s name-checking of Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Leiber and Stoller, and Phil Spector got me thinking about how our shared popular-culture universe—the movies, music, TV, books, and celebrities that absolutely everyone knows—is so much smaller now than it used to be, and how it causes people to overvalue what’s new, diminishes our sense of history, and as a result, makes it harder to understand ourselves. One of these days I’ll finish those thoughts, and maybe you’ll get to read them. But for now: “On Broadway” still sounds great.

37. “Wham Bam (Shang-a-Lang)/Silver
36. “Lowdown”/Boz Scaggs
35. “A Little Bit More”/Dr. Hook
27. “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel”/Tavares
24. “Say You Love Me”/Fleetwood Mac
9. “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine”/Lou Rawls
5. “You Should Be Dancing”/Bee Gees
Every year, there are moments in August when I catch something—an angle of the light, a certain puff of breeze, a particular scent on that breeze—and I think to myself, there it is, that’s autumn coming. Those moments are always followed by another moment in which I think to myself, no, it’s too early. Or is it?

“AT40 is heard coast-to-coast and around the world on great radio stations like KTSA in San Antonio.” That’s where Sonny came from before moving to Los Angeles. While he comes across as extremely friendly and welcoming all the way through the show, this is one place where you can actually hear him smiling.

34. “More More More”/Andrea True Connection. The oldest record in the countdown, in its 16th week, which means that it debuted on the show in late April. It’s been on the Hot 100 since mid-March.

33. “Who’d She Coo”/Ohio Players
25. “Sophisticated Lady”/Natalie Cole
15. “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)”/Parliament
There’s more straight-up funk music on this show than there is straight-up rock music.

32. “Another Rainy Day in New York City”/Chicago. Sonny says that Chicago holds the distinction of having more Top 10 hits without reaching #1 than any other act. The band’s next hit, “If You Leave Me Now,” will make the Hot 100 the next week, and in October, it will erase that distinction.

22. “Play That Funky Music”/Wild Cherry. The fastest mover in the countdown this week, up 12 spots. YOU CAN’T STOP IT FROM GOING TO #1, PEOPLE.

19. “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”/England Dan and John Ford Coley
13. “Get Closer”/Seals and Crofts
Sonny says that after Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts moved from Texas to California and joined the Baha’i faith, the family back home was concerned. So his brother England Dan Seals went out to “rescue” him—but ended up becoming Baha’i himself.

In the next installment: fireflies, baked brie, and the songs of the summer of ’76.

Real to Reel at the Dew Drop Inn

On By jbIn Repeat Posts4 Comments

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(Pictured: Gary Strater and Steve Hagler of Starcastle, on stage in 1977.)

I recently came across a thing that I wrote in 2009, after digging into the now-defunct tour history page for the group Starcastle, the central Illinois prog-rock band I’ve mentioned here many times. It painted an interesting picture of the life of a hard-working band that made it to the B-list and became modestly successful, until they weren’t anymore. Here’s a bit of that, slightly edited.

. . . . The tour history begins in 1973, when the band was known as Mad John Fever. For the next two years, they played lots and lots of bars, a few high school gyms, and a Ramada Inn. They occasionally shared a bill with big names, opening for Blue Oyster Cult, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Stories (in Platteville, Wisconsin, where I would go to college years later), Captain Beyond, and the Strawbs.

They were known as Pegasus for the Strawbs gig; at some point late in 1974 they had changed their name, and they promptly got in trouble with another Illinois band that already had the name. So they put some other likely choices into a hat and drew one. No name could have been better than Starcastle for the Yes-styled prog rock they would play over the next several years.

The tour history for 1975 is sketchy, as the band worked on their first album. . . .  In January 1976, they open for another conglomeration of heartland prog-rockers, Kansas, at the University of Missouri in Columbia. A month later they open for Gary Wright in St. Louis, but the next two nights they’re playing bars in southern Illinois before they open for the Electric Light Orchestra in Chicago. A week later they hook up with Kansas again (and Rush) for a show in the Chicago suburbs.

In two weeks of March 1976, following a bar gig in Mattoon, Illinois, Starcastle plays on bills with Journey, the J. Geils Band, Styx, and Peter Frampton. The next month, they alternated college gigs with spots on bigger arena shows (ELO, Rush and Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult and Styx). As their profile grew in 1976, they got some extended gigs, opening for both Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull for about a week at a time. They opened for Fleetwood Mac at shows in Green Bay and Madison during July.

In December 1976, Starcastle joined up with Boston (their CBS/Epic labelmates) for the first time. The two bands would spend much of February and March 1977 on the road together. A February 10 show on Long Island added East Coast legends Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes to the bill. (On March 6, 1977, Boston and Starcastle played Madison.) Through the remainder of 1977, Starcastle appeared with artists including Manfred Mann, ELO, Journey, Gary Wright, Rush, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Foreigner, Styx, Utopia, Kansas, and Robin Trower. Some of these were headlining gigs. Starcastle had released two albums in 1977, Fountains of Light in January and Citadel in October. . . .

The next year, 1978, saw lots of dates with Styx, but also what must have been one of those all-day outdoor shows, with Ted Nugent, Mahogany Rush, Journey, and Eddie Money, in Louisville in July. By 1979, however, it was back to the bars: Starcastle’s album Real to Reel had bombed, CBS had dropped them, and lead singer Terry Luttrell and keyboard player Herb Schildt left. (Schildt would go on to a distinguished career in computer science.) So they played the Barn in Ottumwa, Iowa, Vogues in Indianapolis, and even the Dew Drop Inn in Danville, Illinois. They got a few arena shows in this period, including several dates with Head East in 1979 and 1980.

At some point in 1980 or ’81, Starcastle was back at my college, recruited at the last minute to replace another act that had canceled its appearance at the annual Homecoming concert. But that show wasn’t on the tour history page. And although there’s been a working edition of Starcastle in recent years, by 1980, they were pretty much history themselves. 

In the 70s, it was possible for a band like Starcastle to make a perfectly acceptable living in bars and at colleges, by professionally filling 45 minutes at the start of someone else’s arena show, and maybe, every once in a while, headlining an arena show themselves. I am not sure there’s a place for that kind of act anymore, or if that kind of act even exists, the kind of act whose manager might say to the promoter handling Kansas, “The guys can’t open Saturday night because they’ve got a bar gig in Mattoon, but you can put ’em down for Sunday.”